Is music always on cue with interactive narrative?

Music is often considered an ideal aid to media forms such as film and gaming, but Abraham (2011) declares that this is not without complications and careful approach.

Generally, in a ‘first-person shooter’ game, a prerecorded soundtrack is added that enhances the drama of a situation and matches the mood but not necessarily the rhythm and actions of the player. Abraham (2011) juxtaposes this with the infamous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Abraham (2011) alleges that if the scene were in first-person, not the omnipresent third-person that the scene was filmed and edited to, it would not have had the same effect (p. 62). He attributes his opinion to the fact that the audience would know the antagonist’s motivations and see his preparation before the murder.

This is untrue. The point-of-view (POV) shot has been utilised in many horror films since Psycho (1960), such as the opening scene to Halloween (1978), where the antagonist stalks and commits a murder entirely in POV with a violent but effective soundtrack.

Abraham (2011) continued to address ancient perceptions of music, such as Plato’s idea of song with words, musical code and rhythm (p. 64). Abraham, however, does not acknowledge Aristotle’s perception of music, which he believes exists to purify the soul (Politics, VII, 2).

Abraham’s assumption that music is struggling to adapt to modern gaming because of complications in synchronicity is therefore unlikely, as there are many different perceptions on the meaning and effects of music.

The expansion of game narrative has also proved itself to adapt to have a positive but also negative effect on modern gaming, mostly due to gamers wanting more alternative pathways within games. Mapping has been a common tool in formatting game narrative and exploring options. For the first choice a player makes, they may have two options, and then for each of those options, another two options, and so on. This can be problematic however, as it can lead a game to have tens, hundreds or even thousands of alternative endings. A simple solution is to have the options fold back on themselves to a select number of alternative endings (Abraham 2016).

A real-world example of the combination of music and the digital landscape is the advertisement campaign HitRecord, sponsored by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The campaign, launched by the company LG, aims to inspire musicians across the world to film themselves playing music to an audio track, which will be compiled as an orchestral collective from around the world for LG’s advertisements – taking advantage of user-generated viral marketing.

McLuhan (1964 p. 8) once proclaimed that the content of a medium is another medium (p.8-9). Whilst music and narrative, in this context, are the medium of films, video and games, it important to experiment and thing creatively, in order for music and narrative to advance in a digital world.

REFERENCE LIST

Abrahams, B. 2011, Halo and Philosophy, Open Court, Chicago.

Abrahams, B. 2016, ‘Digital and Interactive Narrative’, UTSOnline Subject
54001, lecture notes,  UTS, Sydney, viewed 11 August 2016, <https://uts.echo360.net/ess/echo/presentation/627e3332-1fab-43cb-8561-356572f55069?ec=true&gt;.

Aristotle, Politics, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, viewed 21 August 2016,
<http://faculty.smu.edu/jkazez/mol09/AristotleOnMusic.htm&gt;.

Halloween 1978, motion picture, Compass International, Los Angeles.

McLuhan, M. 1964, Understanding Media: Extensions of Man, McGraw-Hill, New York.

Psycho 1960, motion picture, Universal Studios, Universal City.